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I love/. People re-cast your argument in the most simplistic fashion, mingle it with an ad hominem attack, and a disparaging tone and get moderated up for it.

You are totally right. Because none of the companies who make nuclear reactors have a vested interest in making sure they can sell their products nor hire lobbyists to assist that, for instance. In fact, the entire Energy sector is really famous for doing what is best for the industry, the consumer, and the world at large. Enron was a fluke. Real companies aren't really like that.

Nor is the nuclear energy industry more tightly interwoven with its own regulatory industry, the legislature that passes laws on it, and it's own inspections, than the entire rest of the military-industrial complex put together. That's just paranoid. (Which, combined with the large lack of education about nuclear technology further retards its widespread adoption, and thus, likely, innovation.)

Er, there were jet engines on the Wright Flyer? There's a technological progression involved. Paper wings and lawn mower engines to jet power and rockets and space flight. It's not the same. Railways haven't changed much, no. Is that because no one has come up with any new way to do things? Land trains, maglev, etc? Where's the same level of innovation in power generation?

Which one? The polyurethane headed carbon-fiber handled one? Or the tungsten steel headed one? It is a good point. But...even there, we've seen a certain amount of advancement. It's not like cars can't be advanced, they've been getting essentially the same gas mileage since the 1940s, for instance.

It fascinates me that we use nuclear power, to generate steam...to generate electricity. It seems a long way to go, to do something they figured out how to do in the 1800s. When you're a little kid and you hear 'nuclear power', you think...the nuclear aspect actually generates power. Like, the powerlines are plugged into the reactor and the 'nuclear stuff' generates power.

I think most of the nuclear fears are ignorance and hype and a lack of education on the part of the public. But...it does seem like a lot of danger and risk just to burn water. There should be more energy efficient means of doing it. Especially by now. I think this really demonstrates how much Big Oil and Big Energy have held back our technology. You can't find much else (besides cars) that is still using the same methods and fundamental technology 100 years later.

I was just going to comment on that. By connecting wikileaks to a rogue's gallery of villains, the article makes it's political leanings pretty clear. It's also woefully brief and simplistic. But this article seemed more designed to get lots of hits, by using every buzzword it could think of that'd make it come up high on Google than useful or informative. I guess if you were teaching a 5th grade class an introduction to malicious software hackers it'd be a place to start. This is like a nursing home-time news broadcast designed to scare seniors and technophobes. Kids are licking toad's butts to get high! News at 11! Fluff piece. Maybe it'll be on L&O next season.